Roll call!

Hi Christo

Thanks, that sounds like soemthing i should check out.
Thanks for the tip

Jason

On Valentines day, 2004, I saw DeVotchka live at the Boulder theater. The gypsy infused, roaring twenties inspired band was outfitted complete with cello, violin, trumpet, a THeReMin, etc, and burlesque ribbon dancers. I couldn't stop thinking and questioning out-loud about the theremin. Yet, after the show, I researched circus classes..., so that, I, TOO, could hopefully be 'one who dances with ribbons.'

Yeah, that never panned out. However, my obsession with the Theremin has not subsided. Finally, after three years of saying i LOOOOOOve theremins, i want to play a theremin, I like people who play theremins, I'm going to make my nintendo into a theremin, I purchased an etherwave kit :o

Now, here i am.

-bingbong

Hey all! I just got a Moog EtherWave Standard a couple weeks ago. I had never played before then, but I'm learning now. It's great! I put a few videos on youtube, if anyone's interested. You can find them here:
http://www.youtube.com/carport888

It's funny, I always seem better when I'm practicing...

Welcome to Thereminworld Carport888, You've just taken your first steps into a larger world.

Hi everyone- My name is Jeff Nolan, and I just got a Big Briar Etherwave Standard a few days ago. I was always interested in the theremin, but never had the opportunity to really get my hands on (near?) one. A vintage guitar store that I frequent got one and sold it to me for $100. How could I say no to that? It's in perfect condition and I'm already hooked. I've been a working guitarist for close to 20 years, so this is really a brave new world for me. I plan to incorporate it into my group asap, but I don't want to be another rock dude making woowoowoo noises with a toy. I want to learn to truly PLAY the thing. I can't tell you all how happy I was to find this site. What a wealth of information. I've noticed that a lot of you run guitar effects with your theremin. That seems like a natural fit to me. The pure wave of a theremin should be ideal for octave dividers and pitch harmonizers. One thing I've been doing to help learn is to run a guitar pedal tuner in-line on the theremin and set to "streaming" mode. This gives me a pretty decent frame of reference on pitch (I've got the ear of a rock guitarist) and shows me how sharp or flat I am relative to the note's center. I think this is a good practice trick. Is this a common thing to do?

Hey Jeff and welcome! The tunder idea was one I flirted with, but never did. I have a Boss digital tuner and I just didn't think it would work. Maybe I should try it anyway. It sounds like it's working for you. What tuner are you using?

I'm using a Boss TU-2 chromatic. It's a fairly "standard issue" stompbox tuner. I use it in streaming mode and you have to use the bypass jack for the output, otherwise it mutes the signal. It's not necessarily something I'd want to use in performance, but it's really helping me get acclimated to the theremin's pitch range.

Hi Nolan, and welcome to Theremin World.

You're not wrong about pitch shifting and theremins. I have a Boss PS2 and PS5 amongst my pedals, and they're pretty good.

The PS2 is showing its age for sound quality - it's a bit hard and lo-fi - which is a good or bad according to your preferences. What it offers is a feedback loop, so you get multiple shifted pitches, fading off towards the subsonic or the supersonic. I love big fat down-shifts - full, rich, deep and very phantom-of-the-opera-organny. A great backing sound, looking for a solo on top of it.

The PS5 only creates a single extra voice - it sucks a lot of tone out of the sound for the second voice, but there are few reasons to play the second voice alone and together with the primary voice it sounds fine.

One reason just to use the second voice would be to switch into harmoniser mode and use it to quantise your theremin. It works, after a fashion, but it kills vibrato stone dead, and the transitions between notes are crude. Coupled with the thin, reedy tone it turns your lovely theremin into a stylophone! These limitations can be overcome by slapping a load of echo on top, but then again that's pretty much my solution to everything.

What is good with the PS5 is that you can vary the interval between the two voices with a foot pedal, which is wild! I used that on a piece called Butterflies Of Vertigo. Check it on mySpace (http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=7940392) or youTube (http://youtube.com/watch?v=LMneUcHnRqI).

Visual tuning aids are something of a moot point. My unqualified opinion (I don't hold with all that "playing in tune" nonsense) is that it's not the best way. Why? The theremin is the most responsive instrument possible - the same time as your hand moves, the pitch changes - it's like learning to keep your balance on a bicycle - you can't do it while you're taking the time to think about it - you need to develop hand-ear coordination, and while you're watching a pitch meter you're learning hand-eye coordination instead. Whether you can later successfully abandon the pitch meter as you might remove bicycle stabiliser wheels I do not know.

Right on, Gordon. Good advice. The tuner thing is, for me, just a "start up" tool. It's helping me see what kind of intervals I'm getting from different finger positions. I'm sure I'll feel that it's just getting in the way fairly soon. Also, I've been running it through a lovely old tape echo and it sounds absolutley incredible. If my enthusiasm continues (I see no reason for it not to), I'll probably be looking for a tube theremin eventually. I've really got to get my pitch together first, though!

And Gordon's points are probably why I never actually tried the tuner idea. Smart man, that Gordon.

Speaking of pedals, I bought the PS5 on his recommendation and haven't been disapointed. I also found it useful for the kick on my Roland R-5 drum machine. Love that pedal.